Users in a shared access broadband network may be logically grouped based on the business type, policy, service agreement, and so on. These users may be spread over a large geographical area and they may access the shared bandwidth from an access point (e.g., terminal) to an aggregation point, such as a network gateway. An operator on that shared access broadband network may provide, for example, internet services to one or more groups of users that subscribe to bandwidth from the operator. Such a group of terminals may, for example, be an enterprise with terminals in multiple geographical locations, or a virtual network operator (VNO) that provides internet services to users in a large geographic area. A logical group of terminals may sometimes be referred to as a terminal group (TG). Accordingly, access to such shared bandwidth may necessitate the dynamic allocation of network resources to these TGs based on certain policies, service agreements, and actual traffic demand.
Consider, for example, a digital video broadcast satellite network such as a DVBS-2 based geosynchronous earth orbit satellite network. DVB-S2 is a digital television broadcast standard developed by the DVB project (an industry consortium), and ratified by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) envisioned for broadcasting services, interactive services including Internet access, and data content distribution. Signals transmitted on the forward channel may be based on the DVB-S2 standard, while signals transmitted on the return channel may be based on the Internet Protocol over Satellite (IPoS) standard. In such a network, the IP layer and link gateway may be referred to as the IP gateway (IPGW) and the satellite gateway (SGW), respectively, where the SGW may include one or more inroute group managers (IGMs) running bandwidth allocation algorithms. The data stream may be broadcast to remote network nodes such as Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSATs).
In the return direction on a satellite network, multiple VSATs may share one inroute with a certain amount of bandwidth when transmitting data. Because the VSAT traffic has different priorities, and VSATs may have different service agreements, the different types of traffic data may be regulated in different ways to meet the quality of service (QoS) requirements. In addition, due to limited bandwidth, an IGM may be congested for certain periods of time. Without appropriate traffic regulation, low priority traffic may block high priority traffic, causing unsatisfied QoS.
Existing methods for inroute bandwidth allocation in a shared access broadband network can involve generating a backlog report, transmitting the backlog report to an inroute group manager (IGM), receiving a bandwidth allocation from the IGM, and servicing priority queues and transmitting data to a satellite based on the bandwidth allocation from the IGM. As can be appreciated, such existing methods focus solely on individual inroute groups (IGs).